Tracking the Texas High School Learning Pathways (Poster 23)

• In Event: AERA Promising Scholarship in Education Research: Dissertation Fellows and Their Research

Abstract

"The goal of this study is to examine student course-taking behavior under a Texas policy, passed in 2013, that removed Algebra II as a graduation requirement and created endorsements or learning pathways where students take a series of courses that meet their postsecondary goals. I seek to understand how the policy shapes students’ choices with regards to coursework and the implications it has for their post-secondary trajectories. Although tracking is well-documented in U.S. schools, few studies in the past 20 years have examined how policies that allow students to choose their own learning pathways could still reproduce inequities. My study contributes to the course-taking and tracking literature by accounting for the context under which students are learning, using multilevel models. Using multinomial logistic multilevel models, I will analyze the course-taking behavior of students who entered high school during the 2015-2016 school year and the 2016-2017 school year by looking at the types of endorsements that they took and how those endorsements vary across school and student-level factors. The study will pay a particular attention to the role of Algebra II in student endorsement choice, as Algebra II is associated with postsecondary outcomes. The study’s findings will have implications for policies that govern the educational experience of diverse student populations, especially those from historically marginalized and under-resourced communities.
Keywords: high school, graduation requirements, tracking, learning pathways, stratification"

Author

• Hadiza Mohammed, University of Texas at Austin